


Sanctuary

by Beleriandings



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Bittersweet, Gen, Jheselbraum mothering Ford, Journal 3, Lots of headcanon, a moderate amount of fluff, cosmic sand, my headcanon about Ford's leaving D52
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8426863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: “I was so excited that we spent the entire evening partying and drinking Cosmic Sand - the same kind Time Baby himself consumes. When I awoke the next morning, she was gone and I was in another dimension entirely. It was time to continue my quest.” - Journal 3





	

“…Oh” said Jheselbraum to herself, as she heard a quiet snore from the soft nest of cushions on the floor beside her, swiftly followed by the clink of glass as the empty purple crystal goblet rolled across the soft piled blankets and sitting pillows and onto the stone floor, knocking softly against the base of the wide picture windowall.

For a moment, Jheselbraum frowned with concern to see that the goblet had rolled out of a hand… a six-fingered hand that had gone slack as its owner had fallen into unconsciousness, curled softly amongst the cushions. 

For a moment, she felt a flicker of worry, before she smiled. Of course, but she had only been careless. Cosmic Sand was potent stuff, even in such a dilute suspension as this - even she herself felt a slight, pleasant tingling at the ends of her fingers, the edges of the vision in her upper set of eyes turning slightly purple and the action slightly speeded up as she began to see through time - and for such fragile beings as humans, the effects would surely be even more pronounced.

_Silly of me not to anticipate that_ , she thought, checking the dressing over Stanford’s head - it was still fresh and perfectly in place, for she had done her work well - and affectionately straightening the earflap hat over it that she had made him in place of the hair she had been forced to cut before the surgery. She also took off the external vision correcting devices he wore on his face, folding them and placing them carefully in his breast pocket.

She felt the need to check on Stanford’s health and well-being rather often. It was only because she couldn’t feel his emotions as easily as she could before, she told herself, but that was simply a sign that the metal plate she had implanted in his skull was doing its job correctly.

Next time, she decided, she would take her new information about the effects of Cosmic Sand on humans into consideration and not offer him quite so much of a concoction created by species with far higher tolerances for time-altering substances.

She lifted Stanford in her arms - blanket and all - and began to carry him to the softly cushioned carven sleeping alcove in the chamber where she had been carefully watching over him as he recovered from his surgery.

At least, she thought, it looked as though he was sleeping peacefully in this moment, free of the nightmares which had plagued him early on in his stay in her shrine, and - as he had confided to her - for many years now.

Humans were very resilient indeed, she reflected, as she looked down at his sleeping face. Stanford was only forty-nine of their esoteric, solar-based linear time units old, but when she had converted it swiftly to interdimensional common logarithmic time units, she had to check it again, not trusting herself; _only 3.89 ICLTU?_ Why, when Jheselbraum had been that age, she had been still at her own mother’s side, rocked in her arms as they sang softly together to the egg from which Jheselbraum’s younger sister would soon hatch.

Still, humans lived on different timescales; the spans of their lives were much shorter, but they lived quickly and burned brightly and could withstand more - in her experience - than many other species gave them credit for.

She gazed out of the great, wide window before her for a moment. The view was undeniably, stunningly beautiful, the second sun setting over the eddying, spiral clouds painting them brilliant shades of pink, offset by the infrared haze and the iridescent turquoise and ultraviolet airglow that ringed the horizon, lit from behind by the soft X-ray scattering of the higher atmospheric layers. The mountains peered up through the cloud layers, with their twin shadows - one long, from the setting second sun, one short and blue from the first sun - delineating precise sixty-four degree angles, by Jheselbraum’s quick calculation. She smiled a little, affectionately; the first time she had shown Stanford this view, it had been near impossible to get him to tear himself away; he had practically pressed his face against the glass, acting with the childlike delight she might have expected from one of the tender age of a mere 3.89 ICLTU.

She had smiled, and told him it was the greatest shame that his eyes could only see a slim fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, and they had spent a happy evening with her describing what it looked like to her in each wavelength in turn.  

But even as the memory was passing through her mind, something else in the window caught her attention, and the smile died on her face.

She had not taken enough Cosmic Sand to truly be able to see all of the space-time continuum, but with the purple-tinged future overlayer that was starting to become superimposed over the edges of her field of view, she had caught a flicker of something in her peripheral vision.

Something that looked all too recognisably like an unregistered, badly-cloaked Yndeminian trawler from Dimension 618B careening through the atmosphere at high velocity, unless she was very much mistaken indeed.

That, with overwhelming likelihood, meant one thing; bounty hunters.

It was not hard to guess what - or who - they were coming for.  

Jheselbraum looked down at the sleeping human in her arms, with a gentle sigh. She had thought to let him rest a little longer, but it seemed that was not to be, for now.

She picked up the bottle of Sand that they had been drinking from; estimating how much was left, and how much she had ingested herself. Suspended and diluted like this, Cosmic Sand was classed as a recreational substance in most sectors of the multiverse, but it did still retain some of the powers of time-transparency that it was known for, and the amount one drank determining the maximum range into the future and the past one could see.

She frowned as she worked out the quantities; one hundred and thirty one picodots, give or take a little. Maybe even less than that. That was about enough time to get Stanford to safety, or should be if she was quick about it. The shrine’s defences should hold them off a little longer… for a moment, she considered simply battening down the dust storm shutters, raising the psychic force field, and staying this out within the shrine. But she dismissed the idea almost instantly. If it was Bill himself that had come, then perhaps that would work. But no; even if he was able to break through her hidden defences and manifest physically in Dimension 52, then he was still too clever to bother trying a psychic attack on her, or on Stanford while he was under her protection. She had to give him at least that much credit. But Jheselbraum also knew that many, many beings in the multiverse would do terrible things for money, or security, or Bill’s favour, and still more out of fear of retribution.

And even these walls were not physically indestructible. She knew that a siege would not last long, and if they had her surrounded she may be forced to plumb depths of her power that she really would rather not have used on any save the greatest evil this multiverse knew. The Axolotl had not granted her those skills lightly, after all, nor would she use them save at the greatest need, and surely not on those capable of redemption. Which ruled out any of Bill’s servants or puppets or those he was manipulating into doing his bidding, for they could still be saved.

Now, though, her priority was the protect Stanford.

With that thought came decision, and the knowledge that she had not a picodot to waste.

Quickly and calmly, she laid Stanford down in his alcove - he was still sleeping, snoring lightly with his mouth a little open - and gathered his possessions - a large number of them notes, meticulous plans for the Quantum Destabiliser he was building - and packing them quickly and neatly into his small travel bag, along with a supply of dried food and water, dust storm goggles, and warm mittens. Spare hydrogen fusion microcells for his dimensional translator went into the outside pocket, along with some of the scintillation-spiced rockberry dumplings she had baked the previous day, the ones he had liked so much. Then she put his boots on his feet, and his coat and his weapons holsters over his clothes, and lifted him, travel bag and all, in her arms once more.

Thus arrayed, he should be well able to make his own way in the multiverse, she thought as she walked to the dimensional translator pad, already tapping in coordinates. It would be a hard road, she knew, but she also knew what would - if the timeline she had picked and meticulously followed through the tangled threads of the future was indeed the correct one - lead him to peace and happiness, one day.

The pad whirred and brilliantly coloured light danced and swirled around her as she pressed the button that would take them where they needed to go.

When the light cleared, Jheselbraum opened her eyes in a flurry of blinking, taking in the new surroundings with a critical eye. It was the right place, that she knew for sure, but there was still the logistical problem of where to safely bestow her charge. She scanned the landscape; blue sand, and another gentle, violet sky. There was a soft, warm breeze that smelled gently of calmolimeol candles, or something similar; a good smell, sweet and slightly astringent. The gravity here was a little weaker than her artificially-regulated gravitational field at the shrine, but it would do. Her three leftmost eyes caught immediately on a high, spindle-pointed mountain range, and she smiled, turning towards it as she caught sight of a cluster of openings in the rock. She began to walk across the slightly warm sand, a pleasant spring in her step from lowered gravity. In a short while, she came to the rock face, clambering over a cluster of low boulders with ease, taking care always for the sleeping human in the crook of one arm.

She chose the third-lowest cave from the ground, reasoning that if there was anything hostile here - highly unlikely, as this world was generally a kind and safe place, which was why she had chosen it - it would be delayed somewhat by the climb, yet it was not high enough that Stanford would have too much trouble climbing down when he awoke, or injure himself much if he should fall.

The cave was dark and dry inside, and she laid Stanford down gently on the sand that had collected in a little depression in the rock in the middle.

Looking at him lying like that - soon to be left quite alone - Jheselbraum felt an only half-expected rush of affection, an unwillingness to let him go. He would go through so much, tossed upon the waves of a troubled dimensional sea before falling back into a new struggle of a different kind, the line of a life broken off starting anew. But she wouldn’t be there to see it, and he would never get to tell her of it.

Still, that was how it must be.

She hesitated for a scant moment. Then, with a swift, brushing motion, she knelt and kissed him on the forehead, just below the edge of his hat. Then she stood, and turned to go, without looking back.

After all, there was little time.

Back at the shrine, she materialised in a whorl of coloured light once more. Sure enough, as soon as she had returned, she heard the docking platform’s machinery outside the shrine hiss and rattle as the ship docked, orange warning lights on the control panel by the door blinking rapidly as the security was overridden.

_Well_ , Jheselbraum thought. _They must be somewhat cleverer and more prepared than this sort usually were._ She closed her eyes, concentrating deeply for a moment, touching the great blue cosmos gem that hung on its chain around her neck. She felt its bright swirl of universal energy, a comforting conduit as always to a hint of that great power, touching the unknowable, unquantifiable mind of the great Axolotl who was everywhere and nowhere, an omnidimensional well of power beyond the dreams of a flat being like Bill Cipher.

“Great Frilly One”, Jheselbraum said aloud, kneeling reverentially for a moment in front of the tapestry in the antechamber. “Grant me power, this day.” Even as she let her mind slip into the concentrated, calm state required to use her magic if she needed it, she felt an answering, soft pulse of power from the gem, warm and comforting under her hand.

“Thank you” she whispered. “I will use it well.”

She would act with mercy to a point, she knew, but it was her duty to protect Stanford’s location and plans, as well as her home dimension and as many others in the multiverse as it was possible for her to keep safe. That was her mandate that went with the power she held, the power that was growing even now in a brilliant, pulsing purple globe between her open palms.

She got to her feet and smiled once more, and opened the door with her mind, catching sight of three cloaked and grey-hooded figures, wielding large guns.

“Now, now…” she said calmly, expanding the globe of light to form a brilliant, shining nimbus all around herself. “What has the accursed triangle sent me this time?”

 


End file.
